fromlostdays

I have been experimenting with using the Dualshock 4 controller for the last week or so, and have had nothing but problems with it. I am running Windows 10 with the controller plugged into USB, and cannot get the controller to stay in exclusive mode for any length of time. It always seems to disconnect and reconnect, and change out exclusive mode when it does, which then adds a second controller to windows and stuffs up retroarch. I have tried InputMapper and DS4Windows, and the issue is there with both. I can get the controller to connect with bluetooth, but the latency was very high as soon as I started playing any game, and the input lag would be awful! Might have to just switch back to the wireless 360 controller, which I have never had any issues with connecting. This is exact process and problems I went through with it. It sucks too because it could have been the one. I switched back to the 360.

Pardon my ignorance, I've never really used Mameuifx. At least, not to its full potential, it seems. What benefits does it have over standard Mame if you're launching through a front-end like LaunchBox already?

That command looks wrong to me. Shouldn't it start with the associated platform? For instance: Super Nintendo -p LaunchBox -f "H:\LaunchBox\LaunchBox.exe" -s "Super Nintendo Entertainment System" -r I also notice that Commodore Amiga seems to be missing from the Platforms list in LaunchBox. Maybe it hasn't gotten there yet, and this is messing up the command. Does AmigaDOS emulate any other commodore system? If so, maybe try setting that up if its already listed as a platform in Launchbox.

I must be old, but I had a scooby doo lunchbox until like high school.

You know, I did this one for BizHawk a long time ago, before it supported autofullscreen. The Send keypress wouldn't work until I had it WAIT for a while. I can't remember exactly how I did it, but I figured out that the keypress was happening too quick, before the emu was ready for the command. I don't remember how, but you could try having the script wait for a moment before sending the keypress. Also do forgive me for not being more helpful, the only reason I'm here right now is that work sent me home with a 102 fever. I"m pretty loopy.

Yeah. Its: Send, !{Enter} There's a whole bunch of other stuff in the module, WinGetPos, Loop, Sleep. I don't want to just post someone elses work, but the Send Keypress is as stated above.

Ah. I apologize. I didn't see where you had posted a working script.

Alright. Firstly, I can read AHK about as well as I can read Latin, which is to say, alright but not that well. It looks to me like the module (AHK Script) RL uses to make Desmume go fullscreen is a send keypress. The module also does some sleep stuff so that you can't see the emu going fullscreen, it just pops up like that. If you really want, you can download RL and the AHK script is located in RocketLauncher/Modules/Desmume. I just tested it though, I can say for certain that it works right out the box. Setting a game to verticle is almost just as easy, and you can do it one of two ways. The first is by populating a ini with a list of the games you want to be verticle. (This ini also comes installed with rocketlauncher, same folder as the module, however the name has (example) amended on the back of it, so it won't be used until you delete that. An easier way is just a few clicks in the UI. Example below:

Some emulators have a "allow multiple instances of this emulator" option you might be able to turn off.

I'm not sure of the extent of the functionality, honestly, as I've never needed the feature, and my RL Hayday was about a year ago. Also, since I never used the feature, and I've only really tested a few DS games, I'm hesitant to speak further on it. I figured there would be something about it on the wiki, but there isn't. However, if you give me an example of a game that requires a different orientation, when I get home from work, I can test it out and report the steps back. I'm pretty confident though that its possible to automate it, and I know the AHK script it uses to launch Desmume lets you launch it directly into fullscreen. I'm not sure what method it uses, but I could also read the module and figure that out if there's interest.

The RetroArch core for MESS doesn't really work either. It does work. And well, actually. However, I could never get it to work for myself. Someone uploaded a version of RetroArch to an FTP with the mess core working (this was a while ago) and I have that version of RA (I think its a random nightly from last year) MESS core works fine and I threw a lot of old obscure systems at it. Its not fully featured, like I don't think there is savestate support etc. but, for me at least, every system I would care to use a savestate already has a much better emulator than Mess. Overall I do agree with the sentiment though, MESS is a Mess.

RocketLauncher handles game rotation and fullscreen Desmume launching. Just an FYI.

fromlostdays OP says he has it working outside of LB so I would assume that if the core can run .zip files then LaunchBox would Launch them since it is really only dependent on what the emulator or core in RA's case can do. I'm like 90 percent sure RA doesn't mess with zips with the exception of just a few cores like Mame and FBA. If you select a zip file in RA it'll give you the option to "Run as zip" or something and it never works. It also gives you a another option which I think extracts the contents and then runs, or something, and that works. But LaunchBox doesn't automate that. He just needs to unzip them games. AND reinstall them into launchbox unzipped.

Also, you can't run zips to RA directly from launchbox. (At least I don't think you can.) I use RocketLauncher to unzip my files, but really what you need to do is delete all your games from launchbox, unzip them, then readd them. Try this with one game to test.

Yeah man. Just read through it again. I can't even tell you're not a native speaker. So now double thanks for writing in English as my German is non existent, heh.

Much love and gratitude Cid. Having gone through the process years ago (and with much worse guides), you're inspiring me to get back on this.

I had only marginal success with the DS4. All kinds of issues on windows 10 using the Ds4windows method, including conflicts with my other controllers. But it did work.... somehwhat. However, I bought a 20 dollar insignia bluetooth dongle for the PC, and my DS4 continually disconnected from just a few feet away on my couch. Plus its one more thing you have to run in the background compared to the 360 which is plug and play. I got fed up with the DS4 and gave up by the end of it. I also wouldn't say the DS4 is vastly superior to the 360 controller. The only thing it does better is the D-Pad, and even that benefit is marginal compared to a Wii Classic controller. DS4 analogs lose considerably to the 360. 360 Dpad is unusable. Wii Classic analogs are just awful. ... Maybe I'm just bitter... haha. I thought the DS4 would be the one so I never had to switch between 360 and Wii Classics again. If it had worked better for me, it very well could have been. But even then I wouldn't have said it was the best at anything.

Yeah, I'm in the midde of a playthrough and it just happened to be the first game I tested. I ran a few more and didn't see any problems. Its a fantastic game. I keep seeing you mention using a high internal resolution for N64... Do you mean in RetroArch? There is a core option in there for resolution, but if I put it any higher, the entire play screen shrinks and I can't find any setting to stretch it. We're a far cry from just talking about shaders now, but thanks for all the advice.

Yes, tested without shaders first. Still there. However, I turned "Dirthering Pattern" OFF (I think it was set to "1x Native" automatically and that fixed SOME of the issues. Mostly the broken background images, and if you look at the first screenshot in the bottom left box where they show the hit percentages, you can see a few little white dots. It fixed those too. I still have that dark bar across the center of the menu screens, unfortunately. Thankfully, it doesn't show up in game.

I just got home and immediately tried the RA MEdnafen core upscale of the internal resolution. I see a slowdown at 4x, complete computer lock up at 8x, but at 2x I'm seeing Playstation like I've never seen it before. Its freaking gorgeous. Here's Chrono Cross with 5xbr+crt 2 passes linear, and 1 linear pass of Natural Vision (If you don't use this shader, try it, its in the misc folder, makes the colors pop, but does darken it a bit) However, seems like there's a cost. These anomalies appear regardless of 16:9 stretch, core provided ratio, or integer scaling on or off. Is there a way anyone can think of to fix this? I'm tempted to just leave it as the rest of the game looks so good.

I didn't see this addressed, but you can certainly use your HS media for LaunchBox, at least, I've done it with boxes and videos. You can even leave them in your hyperspin folder, you just have to set the path (and be sure to refresh). Also welcome Keltoigael.

I was having the same kind of issues, wanting to use Xbox controllers for PS1, N64 etc, but wii classic controllers for snes etc. On top of that, somehow the ids for my classic controllers are all messed up in windows, it was a nightmare. I did what Brad suggested and unplugged the thing. I'm going to try setting it to mode 1 as Drybonz suggests, and I'll report back, but I'm glad someone brought this up, as dolphinbar and 360 controllers do not place nice together.

How to change the default scrapped artwork, how to correctly add (and subtract) games, a nice explanation on launchbox's directory structure, systems that require some special steps to import (DOS, MAME).

But games that have a more "realistic" look like Final Fantasy 3 and Contra 3 those shaders really start to look bad IMHO I absolutely agree that one set of shaders per SYSTEM doesn't really cut it. Not to get too tangential, but is there a way to have RA launch Shaders per game? As of right now, I have RocketLauncher launching a per System config, but I'd be willing to go another route, at least for some games like you mentioned that SABR etc. doesn't work well for. Lastly, is that true about internal res scaling on the medafen core?! I did a lot of searching recently about it, and I mostly found posts by the mednafen devs saying they would never do it. (I don't blame them, they make a good point on some emulators should be accuracy based, some should be "best experience" based.) If so, I'm really excited about that. It must be an update of the core that was released after the new version of RA, as I haven't updated the core since then and do not have the options.

On the other hand, I like the cartoony look. Never really got the scanlines either, EXCEPT on games like Super Mario Kart and Donkey Kong Country. I know it isn't as popular, but here's a showcase of Sabr v3: Compare that to XBR and for SNES at least, SABR wins: You can see the difference in the path leading to the cave. For Nintendo 64, I find 2 passes of linear Advanced-AA to be awesome: I am never satisfied with shaders for PS1. Oddly enough, I don't want to dull the edges fo this system, and would prefer some crisp polygons, but I have no idea how to go about it.